Tag: Reproductive Health

Sleep Affects Sperm DNA

We understand that sleep is healthy. It should be no surprise that sleep affects sperm DNA. However, the amount of sleep is also important. The “if sleep is good then more is better” logic seems intuitive but a recent study shows we can get too much of a good thing.

Researchers have identified a link between sleep duration in men and the chromosomal health of their sperm.

In the study of 2020 semen samples provided by 796 male volunteers from colleges in Chongqing (China) from 2013 to 2015, volunteers with more than 9 hours per day of sleep and those with 6.5 hours or less per day sleep had 41% and 30% lower High DNA Stainability–an index that represents the proportion of sperm with abnormal chromatin–than did volunteers with 7 to 7.5 hours per day of sleep. Chromatin is a complex of DNA and proteins that forms chromosomes.

“This is new information after our pervious finding that sleep duration has an inverse U-shaped association with semen volume and total sperm count. In the previous study, we found that these two semen parameters were highest when sleep is 7.0 to 7.5 hours per day, and either longer or shorter sleep was associated with the decrease of the two semen parameters.”, said Dr. Jia Cao, co-author of the study.

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